Grace and love part of being God's children

I love the church. I cannot imagine my life and my family without it. I didn’t always feel that way.

Being in leadership, the church can be a place of pain and heartache. So can my biological family. So can any friendship since elementary school. So can any aspect of living known to man. I thought about buying an island once. Didn’t quite work. I had no idea how to get peanut M&M’s to grow on my island all by myself. My wife wasn’t too keen on the idea either. Leaving the kids on the mainland was not up for discussion.

I remember leading a class a few years back with young parents. We talked about seeing the world as an opportunity instead of fearing it. We talked about using life events to teach about our Lord Jesus. Instead they insisted on “the holy huddle.” They wanted to protect their children form the wild, wild world.

The co-teacher asked them if their children were going to be in their tightly woven holy cocoon. They answered “of course.” They implied that they didn’t want church members to instill their ways on their children either. They claimed that they would be in control. The wise teacher pointed out that they had a problem. Instead of two sinners to disrupt their world there would now be three. On top of that there was no guarantee the third one would ever know Jesus. Whoops, the holy huddle just lost its holiness.

If we look closer in the Scriptures there are more discussions about living as Christian brothers and sisters than there is about living in the world. The Holy Scriptures don’t say get out of the world. It simply puts an emphasis on living together under God’s grace.

It hit me about five years ago. The church is the training ground to learn more and more about the love and grace of God. It is more than a filling station for people on empty. It is more than a place to park our back ends for an hour on Sunday. It is more than we ever imagined. It is where we actually are to practice God’s grace due to his grace that unifies believers.

Often missionaries who are alone on the field will say they miss Christian fellowship more than anything. Why? Being given grace teaches us more about Christ as we give grace. If love and grace cannot exist in the church do we really expect it to make a difference to our neighbor? We are to learn about the length, depth and width of God’s love and grace through functioning under His grace with our sinful counterparts, the man or woman in the pew next to us.

Sometimes I think it is a shame we have the freedom to roam from church to church looking to fulfill our personal fancy. When we do that so quickly we don’t grasp how grace and love are to grow us to be more like Christ whom we offend on a regular basis.

We need a new perspective on the church. It really isn’t about us. It is about the greatest love of all time: Jesus. He sure puts up with us. Go and do likewise.

To read more by John Ring, check out his blog at johnring.wordpress.com.

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